Dead Men Tell Some Tales
by plvto
Summary: "So we're supposed to be, what—good guys this time around, un?" There's a thing about cliches—the reversal is also often true. Sometimes you either die a villain, or live long enough to become the hero. In their case, they had to do both. Akatsuki Time-Travel AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

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Dying, Sasori had to admit, was kind of nice.

Or at least, the being dead part was.

He couldn't really recall what had happened the first time he died—he surmised that as a result of him not exactly dying in peace—but the second time was quite pleasant, save for the unwanted lecture from a certain wet-behind-the-ears puppeteer. Once he had accepted his imminent demise, he had been enveloped in an absolutely heart wrenching warmth—one he had thought he'd never feel again after turning himself into a puppet—and found himself smiling for the first time in decades.

He felt completely and utterly whole.

This time when he died, he didn't experience any sort of lapse in consciousness. He woke in a place void of darkness, surrounded by what seemed like the physical manifestation of purity. The sky was a beautiful azure blue, and around him stretched an endless, white—well, he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was certainly aweing.

In there, he spent most of his time thinking—never fatigued, nor hungry or thirsty. It was as if this area was made solely for him to reflect on the way he spent his years as a living being.

And reflect, he did. For a few years, or perhaps even a decade or so, he found himself mulling over the wrongs he had committed. For a brief moment even, he pondered how he'd go about righting his mistakes if he could, though those silly thoughts were brushed aside for how impossible they were.

And then he woke up inside his Hiruko puppet.

Yet again, he had been called back to the world of the living. He was, without a doubt, wholly shocked, though not solely from the fact that he had returned from the afterlife. He didn't doubt the possibility of it all _too_ much—after all, bringing the dead back to life had already been proven to be achievable—but being brought back _twice_ was definitely pushing it. With the situation being so preposterous, he couldn't even muster a dignified (and fitting) shout of surprise. All that slipped out was one tired, absolutely- _fucking_ -done-with-Kami's-bullcrap word.

" _Seriously_?"

As his incredulous question echoed, he finally took in his surroundings.

He was inside the entrance into Suna—a little pathway wedged in between the seemingly impenetrable wall that encapsulated the village.

There was only one recent occasion that he could remember being in Suna for.

The Kazekage's kidnapping.

As if to confirm his suspicions, the oddly nostalgic sound of Deidara's explosions reverberated in the night sky. As the sound travelled to him, it was accompanied by the throwing of at least a dozen kunai, all of them landing near his (puppet's) feet.

He barely concealed a groan. There was no doubt about it; he definitely looked like a suspicious person, and it would take one hell of a lie to get him out of the situation. That, or a bad one coupled with great escaping skills.

He settled for the latter.

"It seems I've entered the wrong village… excuse my intrusion."

Never in his life had he moved his Hiruko puppet so quickly, and never in his life had he escaped so fast from a fight. The sand nin seemed so surprised at his abrupt exit that they made no move to pursue him. They had bigger things to worry about than some clumpy mass of a man who stood in their entrance for a couple of seconds; after all, from the looks of it, their village would be the casualty of an aerial attack in a few minutes.

Sasori had made it out safely.

And then something piqued his interest.

The men that he was _certain_ had been killed the first time around when this whole ordeal was happened—the guards betrayed by his sleeper agent—were just as not-dead as he was. Instead, his spy was nowhere to be found, and the men were simply poisoned. (Albeit it was one of Sasori's more potent poisons, but they were alive nonetheless.)

Just as quickly as he had fled the scene, he had returned.

The nin that had confronted him moments before stood still in disbelief.

"Your guards were poisoned by… the man on the bird over there," Sasori paused, mentally sending an apology to his often-times-annoying-but-strangely-missed partner for forcing him to shoulder the blame. "Here's the antidote. There's not much of it, so some of your medic nin will have to make copies of it. Either that, or get help from that pink-haired brat from Konoha."

His voice was as raspy and unnerving as ever in his Hiruko puppet, but for the first time in all his decades of owning the damned thing, he was doing something _good_ while using it. He pulled out a slim vial and tossed it at the man he concluded was leading the unit.

And then, once again, he booked it.

The sand nin stared at his retreating figure with a mixture of confusion and incredulity.

Someone blinked. "Do we follow after?"

Before the captain of the squad could begin to speak against chasing after the man—as far as he knew, the lumpy, cloaked man hadn't exactly _done_ anything to warrant them biting at his heels—a huge explosion rocked the entire village, and the sky seemed to disappear behind a giant cloud of sand.

It happened all too quickly for them to even begin to comprehend. A giant clay bird. Their Kazekage falling from the sky. Said bird _catching him and flying away with him_. A few of them pinched themselves, absolutely certain that they were trapped in some kind of fever dream.

And then Kankuro ran out of Suna's entry pathway, his face contorted in distress.

"They have Gaara! They kidnapped the Kazekage!"

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 **The first chapter is out, and a new adventure has begun! Fear not, other chapters will be longer.**

 **Did you guy enjoy it? If you guys did, let me know with a review!**

 **Have a good day! ~**


	2. Chapter 2

**Whoa! Your responses have left me baffled! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

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Sasori looked at Deidara.

Deidara looked at Sasori.

They blinked, then turned in unison towards the other redhead that had unwillingly accompanied them.

Sasori spoke first, stating the obvious. "You kidnapped the Kazekage."

"I kidnapped the Kazekage," Deidara repeated, momentarily struggling to grasp what it was that he had just done. It took a few seconds for the words to settle down in his own mind, but when it finally did, his reaction did not disappoint.

"Oh shit. I kidnapped the Kazekage." He paused, forgetting a small detail. Then he gasped. " _Again_!"

While sighing in exasperation, Sasori pinched the bridge of his nose as if it would do something to ease the infinitely growing amount of stress he often experienced while around the slow blond. (Whatever he had said about missing the kid, he was taking all of it back now.) During his time in wherever the hell that dimension was, he had grown accustomed to finally _feeling_ things again, and now it felt strange to have that ability stripped away once more.

"Yes, you did, indeed, kidnap the Kazekage _again_ , and now we're going to have to deal with his companions. _Again_ ," Sasori drawled, looking at his partner with as much disdain as he could muster (which was surprisingly a lot for a man who had already found inner peace). "So why, for the love of Kami, did you do that _again_?"

Deidara vehemently waved his hands to deny the fact that he had (somewhat) willingly re-dug graves for the two of them.

"I didn't mean to, un! One minute I'm in this weird, white world, and the next minute I'm dodging a huge ball of sand being hurled towards me. I fought the kid 'cause the kid wouldn't stop attacking me, but I couldn't exactly let him fall out of the sky after I knocked him out. Then we'd _really_ have an issue with Suna."

"Are you _vapid_?"

"I spent a decade _dead_ , Sasori, not being given vocabulary tests. What do you mean?"

Sasori was convinced he was gonna go straight back to the White Room via a Deidara-induced aneurysm. "I'm asking you if you're _dumb_. They're shinobi, Deidara, they could've caught him themselves."

Deidara's mouth formed a perfect 'o' shape. "Crap."

Sasori resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. They didn't have time for him to pick apart Deidara's flawed logic. If he remembered things correctly, they'd end up in a minor confrontation right about—

"Return Gaara to me!"

 _Now_.

"Sasori… we have some company," Deidara laughed nervously as Kankuro came into view. "So do you want me to go ahead of you this time too?"

"I don't think the pink-haired brat that killed me off last time is going to appreciate it very much if I poisoned the kid this time around too, so no." Sasori weighed his options; the majority of his decisions during this new life seemed to boil down to a fight or flight response.

He'd choose flight—quite literally—each time.

"Can your bird handle another person?"

Deidara answered him with a cheeky grin. "Of course."

"Don't think you two can get away!" Kankuro growled, whipping out his scrolls to summon his puppets, but it was far too late. Before the first few chakra strings could attach themselves to the puppets' appendages, the panicking duo had made their exit, leaving the puppeteer bewildered by the conversation he had just overheard.

Once they were a solid distance away from Suna, Deidara became aware of small conundrum.

"Sasori, er, where do I head to?"

"What's this? You've only finally decided to follow my orders _after_ we've died twice?" Sasori remarked wryly.

"Either tell me where to go, or shut up and get off my bird!" Deidara snapped.

"Isn't it obvious? Go to the old lair."

"The lair? You mean the place where you died the first time around? I thought the goal this time was to stay alive a little longer than we did during our other two attempts at life. No offense, Sasori, but I think that's a bit counterproductive. I mean, if we want to keep our lives, shouldn't keep the kid away from Pein?"

As Deidara's rambling registered in his mind, Sasori was positive that the not-so bright blond's lack of common sense was going to be what landed _both_ of them back in their graves.

"What makes you think we're the only ones who got brought back? The only thing we ever had in common was the fact that we were partners. We died at different times and in completely different ways. It's hard to imagine that we'd be thrown into the past solely because we worked together for a brief amount of time, and if that were the criteria for time travel, wouldn't we have been accompanied by Orochimaru and whoever your new partner was after me?" Sasori paused to recall the boy's name. "Toni? Tori? Tob—"

Deidara swivelled around and roughly grabbed Sasori's shoulders, effectively stopping the redhead from completing the cursed name. He seemed absurdly paranoid—even for a notorious missing-nin—as his eyes scanned for something in the empty skies that surrounded them. He brought a raised finger to his lips and made a shushing sound.

"Don't say his name, Sasori. I swear the kid gets summoned when someone even _thinks_ of him."

Sasori gave his ex-partner an incredulous look, suddenly thankful that he had been the first one to die. Going off of Deidara's exaggerated reaction to the mere _possibility_ of his former comrade showing up, the Akatsuki had gone to shambles after his demise. After all, not many things made the pyromaniac so jumpy—Deidara hadn't even flinched when he'd first figured out Sasori's puppets were composed of corpses.

"Got it. I won't say his name," Sasori promised, brushing Deidara's hands off of him. "Could you turn around and continue to fly the bird, though? Suna's already upset over us abducting their Kage, I don't think they'd like it if we took him down with us in a fiery crash."

Deidara shivered. "You're as morbid as ever."

"Death changes a lot of things. My sense of humor is not one of them," Sasori replied dryly.

Deidara refrained from a verbal reply and, surprisingly, did as Sasori said without further objections. The silence was a bit off-putting—especially for a pair whose favorite hobby prior to their deaths appeared to be bickering—but Sasori wasn't going to push it. Though it wasn't their first time being placed in such a bizarre situation, getting cheated out of eternal peace was still something rather disconcerting.

With his focus now wholly concentrated on maneuvering the clay model, Deidara got them to the base in a record amount of time.

"And you used to always hate flying," Deidara commented on their speedy arrival smugly, evidently proud of his quick mode of transportation.

Sasori rolled his eyes at Deidara's confidence, unwilling to feed the kid's ego regardless of how effective the fowl was at taking them from place to place. "Just unload the Kazekage and carry him inside. I'm going to get Itachi or Kisame to open the cave for us." Sasori gave his presumably-distant cousin a onceover. "If he wakes up prematurely, just knock him out again. "

"Knock him out again? Isn't the point to _not_ anger Suna anymore than we already have?"

"Another bruise on him isn't going to be what sends an army to our doorstep," Sasori quelled his partner's worries dryly. "If anything, considering we've captured their Kazekage and knocked out their forces, we already have Armageddon on its way regardless of what we do from this moment on."

"You… have a point."

"I always have a point. You just never listen."

"Hey!" Deidara cried out in indignation. "I'm listening now, aren't I?"

"Yeah, it only took a decade of you being in complete isolation to learn the value of collaboration."

"Just go and open the damn door," the blond grumbled.

Sasori promptly did as asked. Unlike his ever so easily agitated acquaintance, he didn't mind following orders that were somewhat logical. As much as his appearance suggested otherwise, he wasn't a child, nor a readily provoked teen.

He had partially lied to Deidara—he _didn't_ actually know whether or not the entire Akatsuki had become victims of unwarranted time-travel too, but if they _didn't_ have their memories back and proceeded with the Sanbi's extraction, then he'd much rather do it with Itachi and Kisame around as reinforcements.

Fortunately, it would never come down to that.

Unfortunately, what Sasori found when he entered their hideout was quite possibly worse than fighting Suna and Konoha for a Kazekage they had accidentally snatched.

Since its creation, the Akatsuki had rarely gathered together in person. Even when extracting a bijuu, they had settled for doing it via their projections; though it was a slower process, it prevented skirmishes from happening between the more rowdy members of their organization.

So when Sasori walked into a room with almost all their members physically present, he nearly turned around and walked right out.

Before he could, though, Pein's booming voice anchored him in place. "Sasori, you and Deidara are the last ones to arrive." The man was no longer using his orange-haired friend's corpse as a liaison, and instead was attending the impromptu meeting as a malnourished redhead. Despite this drastic change in appearance, he was still as intimidating as ever.

Nevertheless, Sasori ignored his leader's comment about their punctuality. He didn't really care about whether or not he was on time in Pein's eyes—at least, not in this case. _They_ weren't the ones who just had accidentally grabbed the goddamn Kazekage. "Since we're all here… Is it safe to presume that we all are in the same predicament?" Sasori chose his wording carefully, making an effort to speak in a way that gave room for ambiguity just in case his assumption _wasn't_ right.

"How was the Fourth Great Shinobi War?" Itachi asked before Pein could answer, narrowing his eyes at the redhead.

"Not pleasant. I was sealed away during the first wave of combatants," Sasori answered swiftly, not missing a beat.

"Well I'll be damned, I guess we _are_ all in the same boat," Kisame muttered. "Where's blondy at?"

"He's out—"

"Sasori, where should I put the Kazekage, un?" Deidara chose to make his entrance while asking the worst possible question, earning the attention of all those in the room.

"Kazekage?" Konan repeated, and based on the slight twitch of her eye, Sasori was certain a vein was going to burst in her head. She turned to their leader for dreaded confirmation. "Nagato, did he just say _Kazekage_?"

The walls of the cave seemed to quiver with the force of everyone's alarmed shouts as their eyes fell onto the unconscious redhead being carried by Deidara's clay figure. Varying in only the loudness of their voices, each member spit out Deidara's name as if it were a curse.

The only one to take the knowledge of their newest guest somewhat well was Kakuzu, which wasn't saying much. "Kazekage, huh? I wonder how much his village is willing to pay for his return."

Pein— _Nagato_ —stared at their uninvited visitor. "Deidara, Sasori… _I thought we were all in the same predicament_."

Deidara blinked, not understanding the comment. "We _are_ in the same predicament."

Nagato was seriously beginning to regret his decision to recruit teenagers into the Akatsuki. "Then why on this God-forsaken earth _is the Kazekage in this cave_?"

Sasori sighed. This was going to be a tough one to explain.

"So Deidara…"

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 **The rest(most of them, at least) of the Akatsuki has joined the mix! Are you guys still enjoying this fanfic? I'm so flattered by the support I received for the first chapter! I'm trying to keep the members in-character with just a little dash of more human-like personality in them.**

 **Tell me if you guys want more with a review! I'd really appreciate it.**

 **And, as always, have a great day!~**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

 **Edit 6-15-17: I fixed a few minor errors that were bothering me.**

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A cloud of dread loomed over the present members of the Akatsuki. Come hell or high water, they had persevered, baring their fangs till the bitter ends. Death, it seemed, was the only thing that could ever destroy their wills.

Death and, every so often, Deidara.

"You're a _fool_ , Deidara," Itachi muttered, eyes closed and fingers rubbing his temple. As the insult echoed throughout their hideout, it brought along with it another onslaught of groans and complaints from the distraught criminals.

"I can't _believe_ you," Konan commented, speaking more to them now than she'd ever had during their first try at life. "All those years I've spent reflecting on our deeds, only to have our one chance at correcting our mistakes be _screwed over_ by _Deidara_."

"Since this is all his doing, can't we just pin everything on him?" Kisame suggested, grinning despite the somber mood.

"You can't just blame me for everything! Besides, the situation isn't even that bad!" Deidara argued, attempting to defend himself, but it fell on deaf ears as it was followed by a pained groan from the source of all their misery. Try as he might, nothing changed the fact that Gaara was still bleeding out on their floor.

"Isn't even that bad?" Sasori repeated, baffled at his partner's willful ignorance to the direness of their situation. " _Isn't even that bad?_ The Kazekage is on the floor of our stereotypically evil-looking lair, and he's squirming in pain because _you blew him up_. In what world does that not qualify us as screwed, Deidara?"

"It can be fixed?" he offered with a sheepish grin.

"I don't even _want_ to know how you think we can manage that." Sasori could already feel the headache he was going to get from hearing Deidara's solution, and he didn't even _have_ a real head.

"Just hear me out, guys."

Nagato sighed. "Yes, Deidara?"

"Let's just give him back! It'll be no harm, no foul. We might even get on Suna and Konoha's good side if we do." The blond's face looked so smug that the Akatsuki members were nearly swayed by his confidence. Then they actually comprehended what he said.

"Yeah right. As if we can do that," Kisame snorted, then paused. "Wait, why can't we do that?"

"Because there _was_ harm, and there _will_ be foul. I mean, we shot him out of the sky," Sasori offered.

"And two years ago, we attacked Konoha and tried kidnapping Naruto, too," Itachi continued, pausing as he sensed that he forgot something. "I'm also why the Uchiha clan no longer exists in this world."

"Our assassination missions are why half of the collapsed countries in this world are collapsed in the first place," Konan chimed in.

"And the other half collapsed due to my meddling in their economies," Kakuzu confessed.

"And that, Deidara, is why we can't just _give him back_ ," Nagato finished.

"But we've _changed_ ," Deidara insisted, intent on having his comrades take his suggestion seriously. There was, he swore, logic to his idea, albeit it may have been hard to find.

The other members quieted, and he took that as his cue to take the floor.

"I mean, look around!" He gestured grandly at everyone, then focused in on his red-haired partner first. "Sasori, I no longer get the creeps from just seeing you! Your puppets might send chills down my spine sometimes, but you don't as an individual—at least, not as much as you used to, un!"

Sasori raised an eyebrow at the poorly worded compliment but refrained from commenting further. If Deidara went around the room in this fashion, he'd already get more than enough backlash from everyone else.

"Itachi!" The Uchiha gave the blond a bored stare as his name was called. "You still look as uncaring as ever, but you haven't glanced at any of us as if we're beneath you yet! In fact, if I squint a little, you look kinda approachable, un."

"I only gave _you_ that look," Itachi clarified, but his words went unheard of by the blond.

"Kisame!" He faltered when he was met with a terrifyingly toothy grin, but nevertheless went through with his circle of insults. "I don't fear for my wellbeing everytime you smile anymore, and I no longer think you're a human-shark hybrid either, but man is your mug still hard to look at," he laughed.

The blue man laughed along with him, but his hand suspiciously brushed against Samehada's grip as he reached behind him to 'scratch his back.'

"Konan!" The lavender-haired woman stiffened at the familiar way Deidara was addressing her. "I didn't even know you could feel emotions, un!"

"That wasn't even a compli—"

"Kakuzu." The masked man gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. "You've only mentioned money once this entire time, and—call me crazy for thinking so—but I think you were saying a joke when you brought it up too! I didn't think that was possible for you. You were totally devoid of humor the first time around!"

"Leader, you look totally defenseless! Konoha wouldn't think twice of it if you stayed in their village."

Nagato was a man of peace—at least, he was _now_ , anyways—but it admittedly took a few seconds of calmed breathing for him to not resort to his six-paths. Turning Deidara into a piece of modern art splattered against their wall sounded more and more tempting as he went on.

"And Hidan! You've changed the most, un! You're so quiet I don't think you've even talked once—" Deidara froze in place as he turned to face the spot where Hidan usually stood. The area was unmistakably devoid of their local crude maniac. "Uh, where's our satanist?"

"He's a _Jashinist_ ," Kakuzu corrected, "and that's what I was trying to explain to everyone before you dragged the Kazekage in. Hidan's missing. In fact, a lot of people are missing. Hidan. Zetsu. Tob—nevermind the last one. That may be a blessing in disguise. "

Now everyone had snapped their heads to catch a glimpse of the vacant spots their comrades had once occupied. As the emptiness registered in everyone's mind, the horrified reactions rolled in.

"Hidan's _missing_?" Konan gasped, looking as if she were one more piece of bad news away from sprouting her paper wings and flying back up to the heavens of her own accord. Her voice rose a pitch higher as she repeated the name. " _Hidan_?"

"Yes," Kakuzu needlessly confirmed. "Hidan's _missing_."

"And why, pray tell, weren't we informed of this earlier?" Nagato asked, looking a little queasy.

Kakuzu shrugged. "I figured someone would notice after we went a couple hours without him screaming obscenities."

"Great. We're the perpetrators of an elaborate terrorist plot that involved kidnapping the Kazekage, _and_ we've set an immortal spree killer on the loose. Absolutely fantastic. I'm sure the hidden villages will welcome us with open arms now. Don't you agree, Deidara?"

"Sasori, I liked it better when you didn't talk so much, un."

"Quiet, you two. Before we end up being the cause of our own undoing, let's try to figure out where Hidan could be," Nagato commanded, effectively shutting up the two bickering artists. (He might have momentarily neared the state of Nirvana, but that didn't mean he was any less terrifying.)

"Perhaps… he wasn't brought back with us?" Konan suggested.

"Why would the idiot not be brought—"

Kisame's dismissal of her idea was cut short by Itachi. "He was immortal. He never died." He paused to factor in everything else. "It's not to say that he wasn't brought back, though. If we're to go off of the assumption that souls exist, then it's safe to say that our souls were transported back in time. His soul never left his body—"

"So he's probably wherever he was when he was last alive," Nagato completed Itachi's sentence for him, sighing as he nodded in confirmation. "It looks like Deidara's idea may be our only viable option after all."

"In what world?" Sasori dubiously asked.

"Hah! I knew you would come around, Leader-sama!" Deidara snickered. Then the gloating came to an end as he cocked his head to the side. "Wait, why are you coming around to my idea, Leader-sama?"

Nagato appeared to be genuinely disturbed with having to voice his begrudging agreeance to Deidara's plan. "Giving back the Kazekage and getting on Konoha's good side is probably the only way to get to Hidan."

"Eh? Why, un?"

"Because the last place any of us saw him was in—"

"The Nara clan's forest," Kakuzu finished grimly, looking more dejected than he would've been if he had lost the entirety of his slowly amassed fortune.

For a moment, Sasori seemed to be frozen in place—utterly baffled by how unfortunate transcending death could be. At this point, their time travel fiasco seemed more like a punishment rather than a second chance. As he mulled over his likely fate this time around, he promptly began to walk towards the exit of their den.

"Sasori," Nagato began, his voice dangerously low. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Oh, I was just going to go dig us proper graves this time. Maybe purchase some flowers for all of us? How do white lilies sound to you guys?" he snapped, giving the Akatsuki's residential airhead-blond a look of disdain. "The second the Kazekage wakes up and points out the fact that that _imbecile_ over there is the one who kidnapped him, we're all as good as dead anyways, so why not prepare in advance?"

As if on cue, Gaara stirred, and he began to awake.

It was a scene fit for the big screen; a slight breeze gently blew his cardinal locks to the side, revealing a hopeful glimmer in his slowly opening, dazzling, emerald-green eyes. If one had strained their ears, a soft melody could almost be heard playing in the background as Suna's savior regained consciousness. He looked so tender—so benevolent—that the Akatsuki almost believed he would bestow upon them a second chance. Surely such a serene boy could not bare a grudge—not even against the most wicked of beings.

And then Nagato raised his hand, and Gaara was swiftly smashed against the cave wall.

" _Leader_!" the room—even the ever so unperturbed Itachi—chorused, watching the boy, once again, become as limp as a ragdoll.

Nagato looked at them in annoyance.

"Y-Yahiko? Is that you? Finally, I've joined you on the other side. How sad that our team may only be reunited by death. Perhaps we can have one more meal with Jiraiya-sensei now, Yahiko. Truth be told, I've always yearned to return to those simple days," Konan mumbled to the blank wall beside her, delirious from the shock of seeing their last hope crumble.

"Relax, Konan. All has not been lost yet," Nagato assured her, but the rest of the people present begged to differ.

"Have you gone mad, Nagato?" Itachi asked, completely serious with his inquiry.

"And you guys thought _I_ had fucked the whole situation up!" Deidara cackled, but he seemed more hysterical than amused.

"You're all overreacting," their leader snapped, but no one cared to listen.

"Overreacting, he says. Did you all hear that? Leader says we're _overreacting_ about our _second_ assault on the Kazekage," Sasori said to no one in particular, simply reiterating the events to test whether or not he had accidentally consumed a hallucinogen. He, evidently, hadn't. " _Overreacting_."

"The Kazekage can't be conscious for this," Nagato justified.

"We can't exactly keep him unconscious forever though, and when he _does_ wake up…" Deidara winced at just the thought of the imminent repercussions.

"Well… what if he just doesn't wake up?" Kisame asked, pulling the wrap off of Samehada.

"If you want to avoid Konoha's wrath, be _quiet_ ," Nagato demanded, finally at his wit's end.

Konan stopped speaking to Yahiko's spirit, Itachi stopped giving Nagato the same look he often gave Deidara, Sasori stopped mocking Nagato's words, Deidara stopped his maniacal laughter, and Kisame put away his sword. (Kakuzu was still handling things rather well.)

Nagato gave his twentieth exhausted sigh. "Thank you."

"So… what are we going to do, un?"

"Give back the Kazekage when Konoha's reinforcements show up," he replied matter-of-factly as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"But we just… knocked him out… _again_ …" Deidara trailed off, not sure if his leader had actually lost his mind, or if he was just slow. (In reality, most of the Akatsuki were just as lost as their pyromaniac, but no one wanted to admit to being just as confused as _him_.)

"Deidara, it was dark out when your twin brother kidnapped the Kazekage, correct?" Nagato asked, and now the Akatsuki members were _really_ sure he had gone off his rocker.

"I don't… have a twin brother."

"You do now."

"Un?" Deidara was so bewildered that he had forgotten to put a sentence before his signature grunt. "I mean, 'what?'"

The rest of the criminals were beginning to catch on.

"Incredible… it's so stupid that it just might work." Sasori shook his head.

"I suppose we should at least give it a try," Itachi conceded.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Konan grumbled, but she looked significantly more composed now that they had a semi-solid plan.

"But the similarities between Deidara and his brother are too uncanny," Kakuzu pointed out.

"It's uncanny because I don't _have_ a brother, and _I'm_ the one who kidnapped the Kazekage, un. What are you all going on about? Have you guys gone nuts?"

"It _was_ dark when we infiltrated Suna, Leader," Sasori answered Nagato, ignoring Deidara's dumbfounded questions. "I'm sure no one remembers his appearance all that well."

"Excellent. So his long-haired brother—" Nagato faltered, not sure of what name to give their make-believe scapegoat.

"Seidara?" Konan proposed.

"...Yes, his long-haired brother, _Seidara_ , had conspired against Suna. Deidara, being the good samaritan that he is, valiantly fought against his brother in order to rescue the Kazekage, and we, his fellow good samaritan comrades, aided him." Nagato turned to their new last hope, his eyes glittering. "How does that sound, Deidara?"

The keystone piece to their plot had finally caught on. "Do you really think the hidden villages are _that_ stupid? How would we even sell the fact that I'm not Seidara?"

"Well Deidara, being the law-abiding citizen that he is, obviously has short hair. Only hoodlums like Seidara have long hair. Isn't that right, Deidara?" Konan looked at Deidara with—were those _scissors_?—in her eyes.

"You guys… can't possibly… think this will work?" His voice got weaker as he found no ally in the room. He attempted to back away from his newfound enemies, only to find he had trapped himself against a wall.

"This is the least you can do, Deidara," Sasori spoke coldly.

More unified than they had ever been, the Akatsuki stepped towards him in unison, closing him in. With malicious glints in their eyes, they looked even _eviler_ than they had seemed the first time around.

Deidara's shrill scream was drowned out by the abnormally loud snipping of make-shift scissors.

* * *

 **I giggled an absurd amount of times while writing this chapter. If you guys haven't noticed, this isn't supposed to be a super serious fic (though there will be a plot and there will be serious moments sprinkled in).**

 **Did you guys like the chapter? :D If you did, please, _please_ leave a review. As an author it's a bit shameful to admit, but honestly whenever I don't feel like writing, reading your guys' reviews is what gives me the motivation to do so anyways. **

**As always, have a great day!~**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

Deidara gripped the ends of his freshly cut—if you could call what extreme measures his comrades had reached that—hair, looking as if he were conflicted on whether or not he should burst into tears or drag his comrades back into their graves.

No one else looked all that affected.

"Childish," Itachi muttered, and the rest of the Akatsuki members enthusiastically agreed.

For all the effort they had put in, Deidara had miraculously saved most of his mane. Konan's chakra infused, razor-sharp papers couldn't do the job, and Kisame's Samehada had barely grazed the ends of it. Sasori's puppets' efforts proved futile, and Itachi had been unable to place Deidara under a genjutsu strong enough to force him to chop off his own tresses. Even the ever so powerful Nagato failed to do the impossible task and was left playing a futile game of tag with the blond instead.

In the end, they had cut a grand total of five inches—a real feat when the blond's passion for his locks was taken into account. The tips of it still reached down far enough to stretch past his shoulders, yet he still seemed furious enough to kill.

"Let's shave his head next time," Kisame suggested, grinning at his comrade in faintly obscured annoyance. He was not a man who was easily aggravated—especially after spending such a long period of time inactive—but Deidara's baffling resilience to the haircut proved to be even more annoying than all of the hurdles in Kisame's (previous) life combined.

"You've cut enough, un! This is good enough for me to pass as Seidara or whatever the stupid name you guys thought up of was! I'm telling you, this idea is fuckin' dumb, un," Deidara snapped after hearing Kisame's threat to his precious hair.

"We wouldn't have had to stoop to such idiotic methods if you weren't so much of an idiot yourself, Deidara," Sasori spat, brushing suspiciously bloodied blond strands of hair off of his hands. They had really, _really_ done the most to accomplish such a menial task.

"Sasori, you too," Nagato spoke suddenly, earning a confused glance from the puppet master and a gleeful exclamation from Deidara.

"What?"

"Suna's forces saw your appearance too. Get rid of the puppet, Sasori."

"No." Before he had even thought through a proper response, he had already refused his leader's order.

Nagato narrowed his eyes at the redhead. For someone who was usually easy to reason with, Sasori was being uncharacteristically stubborn about this matter. "Sasori, you can either do it yourself, or we can go through the exact same struggle we just had with your partner."

"Go ahead." Sasori gave Nagato a sharp look back—or at least, as sharp of a look as he could muster through a puppet's face. Abandoning one of his precious works of art was where he drew the line for what orders he would and wouldn't obey. He was making it evident that nothing short of Armageddon would persuade him to change his stance.

And Armageddon, he got.

Before he could ready himself for the inevitable struggle, a flock of paper birds flew towards him at neck breaking speed. Barely dodging that attack from Konan, an unavoidable one came from Nagato via his six paths, tossing Sasori right into the very same wall that had nearly done the Kazekage in. Hiruko's shell cracked at the impact, but remained mostly intact for a remarkable eight seconds before the _real_ wave of attacks came for him. Between Kisame's terrifyingly strong water release, Itachi's flamethrower-worthy-substitute mouth, four of Kakuzu's elemental techniques, and a few dozen bombs tossed in by Deidara, Sasori hadn't stood a chance.

(He swore if they had put the same amount of effort into getting things done the first time around, they probably wouldn't have been decimated by a handful of brats.)

Mirroring his partner's disgruntled expression from other, Sasori seethed as he was forcefully ridden of his puppet armor. Like Deidara, his hair, too, had suffered under the hands of the Akatsuki—now singed at the ends.

"Is this the Akatsuki, or a hair salon?" Sasori muttered, now absentmindedly rubbing the damaged, smoldering ends of his hair between his wooden fingers.

He had forgotten that he had become a puppet again.

"Sasori, you're… on fire," Deidara coughed nervously as he informed his partner of the newest misfortune to fall upon them.

"Though I may not feel the heat from it, I'm fully aware that my hair was burned by the Uchiha," Sasori spoke blandly, refusing to acknowledge the smoke that was actually rising from his painstakingly crafted fingertips.

"I'll take care of this." Kisame gave the surrounding members a flashy grin—an unintended signal for all of them to run for their lives.

Though Sasori's lit hand required little more than perhaps a glass of water to put out, what came for him put even the greatest of tsunamis to shame. Kisame had grabbed Samehada and nearly drained half of the collected chakra contained in it—a damn lot considering the fact that most of chakra came from all the tailed beasts. With one swing, a tidal wave crashed against Sasori, washing away both him and the entire cave wall behind him.

The lair that they had so meticulously built for their evil schemes was completely demolished.

Once the Akatsuki had gotten over the new lake that was now where their lair had once been, the more immature members—Deidara and, well, _Deidara_ —began to giggle.

"Good thing you're made of wood, Sasori. You might've drowned if you weren't," Deidara mocked, bursting into fits of maniacal laughter as his partner helplessly floated by.

Sasori shot daggers at Deidara, but could do little more than that. He was unable to find footing on the floor, and continued to move about the ruined room like driftwood. Eventually, once Nagato had grown tired of listening to Deidara's psychotic laughs, Sasori was plucked out of the water and placed onto solid ground.

This would, unfortunately, be the _least_ embarrassing one of all the situations he'd later find himself in during this try at life, but as of now, he was blissfully unaware of the fate that awaited all of them. Therefore, due to his pride still being somewhat intact as of that moment, he looked righteously pissed.

And then he looked around—they _all_ looked around.

After spending such a long period of time inactive, their overpowered jutsus had turned against them.

Deidara's sloppy haircut made him look completely _miserable_ after becoming a casualty of Kisame's jutsu, and Kisame looked just as dejected as Samehada _wilted_ to a fraction of its original size after wasting so much chakra. The water had rendered all of Konan's papers unusable, and her wings had begun to look more like a paper mache project gone horribly wrong. Nagato, being effectively immobile, had bore the brunt of the attacks, somehow getting singed, soaked, and sliced all at once. His six paths, however, had somehow even dragged the ever so serious Uchiha into their amateurish mess; repulsing all the jutsus had resulted in Itachi's flames being thrown right back into his face, and now he, too, had joined the singed-hair club. The finishing touch was done courtesy of Kakuzu, whose four elements had mixed disastrously with all the other active jutsus in the room, eventually leading to mutually assured destruction for all parties involved.

The Akatsuki—for all their devilish crimes and atrocious personalities—looked absolutely, positively _ridiculous_.

It was Konan who did it first.

Trying and failing at hiding the noise, a soft giggle tumbled out from behind her hand, sparking another chain reaction. Kisame joined in with a ferocious roar of a laugh, and Nagato followed suit. Deidara resumed the cackling he was doing earlier, and this time Sasori joined him. Behind his mask, Kakuzu chortled at the odd predicament that they were in, and even Itachi found it hard to not let a small chuckle escape his lips.

Then it grew—from a light, joyous sound to one of absolute _hysteria_ as they were overcome with the sheer absurdity of it all.

"We-We're like children." Deidara barely managed to speak as he gasped for air. "We look like _children_ , un."

"You are a child," Itachi pointed out, though his voice lacked the disregarding tone it once had whenever he had addressed the organization's loudmouthed blond.

"Itachi's telling jokes." Kisame plopped down on the ground, sitting cross-legged as he slammed his fist on the floor to contain his crazed guffawing. He wiped a laughter-induced tear from the corner of his eye. "Itachi's telling _jokes_."

Sasori squeezed the water out of his cloak. "We've really lost our edge, huh?"

"I suppose we have, though that doesn't exactly tell us _why_ we've been brought back to this time. Perhaps it was To—" Nagato stopped in his tracks as each Akatsuki member gave him a faux beam and pulled out what was left of their respective weapons. Regardless of how light the mood had gotten, saying _his_ name—in fear of accidentally summoning him through a power that transcended all forms of reason—was still taboo. Nagato gave them a small smile and pretended as if he hadn't almost uttered the cursed name.

"Maybe it's Fate," he joked. "Perhaps we've been revived for the greater good."

"So we're supposed to be, what—good guys this time around, un?" Deidara added onto Nagato's sarcastic suggestion. All of them were still laughing at however the hell their lives had turned out the way they did.

Then their side-splitting roars faded into nervous chuckles.

"Nagato, why does Deidara's suggestion sound somewhat probable?" Konan asked with a sickly sweet, closed-eye smile.

"Ridiculous," Itachi scoffed at the idea, making it seem as if it were foolish, but the lone bead of sweat rolling down his face suggested he really thought otherwise.

"Does anyone here want to continue with the plan we had once had now that we have subsequent knowledge of how most actions will turn out?" Nagato asked suspiciously, gauging all of the members to see how they would react to the idea of returning to their villainous ways.

Crickets chirped, and not a single person looked all too eager to screw the world over again.

"So the only thing we have in common," Sasori started, "is that all of us are opposed to doing bad in the world this time?"

"There's no way we'd be revived for such a stupid reason," Kisame dismissed the new theory, but all further rational thought pointed to its validness. "Absolutely not."

"Is this some kind of strange way to atone for last time?" Kakuzu asked, already sounding exhausted.

"Good guys," Deidara snorted. " _Good guys_! Does Kami know who the fuck we are, un?"

Kami didn't give a reply, prompting the blond to go on yet another tirade.

"All of our respective villages hate us, un! I'm a goddamn bomber, and Sasori kills people and desecrates their corpses! Don't even get me started on the rest of you guys," he warned, but continued anyways. "I'm pretty sure Kakuzu had to do _something_ satanic to get four hearts, and we all know Kisame is just as bloodthirsty as an actual damned shark would be! Do you know how _fucked_ the world would be if _we_ were the good guys?"

Once again, the ex-criminal organization broke into hysterical laughter. This time, however, it was more for the sake of keeping their sanity in the midst of an insane situation, rather than them finding their circumstances particularly funny.

And it was in that desperate state—with the Akatsuki derangedly giggling out of pure denial for how preposterous their situation was—that Konoha's reinforcements found the nationally feared criminal organization.

Naruto Uzumaki—both the bane of their existence and the savior of their humanity—blinked at their psychotic break.

"Did I knock on the wrong cave?"

* * *

 **This took a little longer than usual to update, but I still made it in under a week. :D Konoha has finally joined the mix, and the Akatsuki are not sure that they've lost their marbles.**

 **Did you guys like the chapter? I've read all your reviews over and over again, and I'm so glad you guys have enjoyed this parody-ish fanfic!**

 **If you did enjoy the chapter, please review! It helps a lot with motivating me to persevere through writer's block!**

 **Have a great day! ~**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

 **Edit 6-29-17: I fixed a few errors.**

* * *

Instinctively, the Akatsuki pulled out the strongest jutsus in their arsenal as Naruto walked in—attempting to take the jinchuuriki's life out of pure muscle memory. By the time they had realized their mistake, it was far too late to fully retract the jutsus.

The best Nagato could do for the greater good—and, of course, for his own entertainment—was repel their attacks right back into their faces.

Once again, the hideout fell into chaos as the criminals were forced to put on an impromptu, abstract show filled with fireballs, tsunami-title-worthy waves, flurries of deadly origami birds, lightning strikes, eerily hanging puppets being launched into walls, and one huge blast that took another inch off of Deidara's hair.

Nagato gave them an insincere, apologetic smile.

The Akatsuki, if they survived through the day, were going to go on a strict, no-justu regime.

The ragtag group anxiously turned to face Naruto, attempting to go about their dreaded confrontation as if they _hadn't_ just almost died for the third time that day. (With that being said, dying probably wouldn't have affected them too much anyways. Based on their history, they'd most likely end up being revived to take more Ls regardless.) This kid was the key to them being accepted back into modern society.

As the blond's eyebrows furrowed together at the chaos, they began to pray to every damned deity in the universe. If Kami had even the _slightest_ bit of mercy for the somewhat reformed criminals, the brat would be daft enough to not have noticed that the attacks they had just tanked for his sake were originally launched with the goal of killing him in mind.

Their prayers worked a little too well.

"What the hell are you guys doing?!" Naruto shouted, and all of them were certain they would return to their graves in no more than a few seconds. Then he continued.

"You all might be criminals, but seppuku isn't the way you guys should leave this world!" he exclaimed, tears welling up in his eyes. "It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem!"

The Akatsuki blanched.

"Seppuku is when you slit your belly to regain honor," Sasori informed, refusing to play along with an even more idiotic narrative than the Seidara one had been. "Our attacks just backfired on—"

"You're completely correct, Naruto," Nagato interrupted Sasori before his obstinate pride could result in all of them being dragged down with him. "You may have just quoted something that has most likely been crocheted into an infinite number of pillows, but I absolutely agree."

For a brief moment, Konan debated whether or not her loyalty to Nagato was worth her discarding her dignity.

She let out one last sigh before she followed his example.

"You're so intelligent!" she gasped, slowly turning her head and deliberately long-lasting eye contact with the rest of her comrades to ensure that everyone caught on. "So smart, in fact, that you could definitely become the next Hokage!"

If she were to be truthful to herself, she had long since had faith in Naruto—this hope having been carried over all the way back from her first round of life—but this Naruto wasn't the one she had encountered all those decades ago. This was one that she had to befriend _without_ Nagato giving his life to revive an entire goddamn village. Figuratively kissing the ground that he walked on seemed to be their only viable option if they wanted to survive for much longer this time.

Thankfully, everyone got the hint from her death-stare.

"Your philosophical outlook is a wonder to observe, Naruto," Itachi nodded approvingly—only for the sake of using this movement to disguise his gritted teeth. Despite how desperately he wanted to live, he was still disgusted with himself for going along with the Akatsuki's half-baked plan.

"Incredible," Kakuzu shook his head in disbelief, though no one really knew whether that reaction was a feigned one for their Naruto issue, or a real one from witnessing _Itachi Uchiha_ give a compliment.

"Y-Yes! It's so amazing that it makes me want to abandon my criminal lifestyle, un!" Deidara stuttered, doing the absolute most to avoid Konan's wrath. Astonishingly enough, his rashly spoken words pried open the gate to retribution for their scraggly group.

Naruto _blushed_ at the kind words he was receiving, throwing all efforts made at keeping his guard up out the window. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, and gave the Akatsuki a shy glance that made them want to puke.

"R-Really? You think so? If you guys are gonna be so nice, Konoha would probably love to—" He managed to stop himself mid-sentence. His eye twitched as he realized he had gone off course. "Hey! Don't change the subject! Give Gaara back to us, or else I'll kick your asses."

The Akatsuki _highly_ doubted he could do much with _all_ of them there, but they had no intentions of finding out the full extent of his ability. They had learned the dangers that came along with doubting Konoha's tenacity.

Nagato tiredly smiled in faux relief, brushing nonexistent debris off of him as he moved towards Naruto. "Thank Kami you're here. We just finished battling against Seidara, Deidara's evil twin brother who is the actual kidnapper. I'm so glad… we managed to save him."

The sentence sounded ridiculously unreal—even to the one speaking it. To the ears of the Akatsuki, it solidified the fact that they were _definitely_ going to be exposed now.

But against all rational thought, Naruto bought it.

With his eyes bulging, he gasped and pointed to Deidara. "Your twin brother? How evil, that bastard! Where is he? Does he still have Gaara? I'll beat him to a pulp!"

Nagato hurriedly waved his hands to defuse the situation. "No, no, no. Seidara was _taken care of_ by us, and Gaara? He's right over here."

Everyone's eyes drifted towards the general area where Nagato was confidently pointing.

Nagato blinked.

Naruto blinked.

The rest of the Akatsuki blinked.

Kisame, especially, blinked.

Kami, Allah, Buddha—whoever the fuck was orchestrating this shitshow—blinked.

Out of all the damned people in the world, though, there was one individual who didn't blink.

 _Gaara_.

And even if he had coincidentally blinked at that very moment, no one would have noticed anyways. He was, after all, _missing_.

"Over here? Where?" Naruto asked, confused as to what he was supposed to be looking at.

In the space where Nagato had indicated was where Gaara was, only a puddle of muddied water remained. From it, a quickly evaporating trail of water led to a torrent that would've given the Mississippi River a run for its money. By pure coincidence—and most likely chalked up to their shitty luck too—the wall that Kisame had blasted away, and the wall that Nagato had launched Gaara into, was simply a thin barrier that obscured an even deeper cave system.

It didn't take a genius to figure out where their ticket to winning over Konoha's hearts had gone.

But a genius voiced it anyways.

"Kisame, it seems you've washed away Kazekage-san with your justu," Itachi casually noted.

"How lovely," Nagato mumbled. "This third life was awful while it lasted."

He was standing in the bits of sunlight that had begun to shine through after the Akatsuki's first justu mishap. The expression on his face was one of a completely resigned man—one who had accepted his inevitable demise. If someone were only able to catch a small glimpse of him, they would swear he had reached Nirvana. (If their stare was prolonged, however, they'd notice the aggravated twitching of his eyes.)

Naruto did a doubletake, unsure if he had heard correctly. He focused his attention on Kisame for affirmation.

Kisame looked a little more blue than usual—purple, almost. While Naruto was giving him an inquisitive glance that didn't mean _certain_ death, the Akatsuki members were shooting him daggers that promised a very long and very painful execution if he botched this up. He weighed out his options—it was either what little remained of his self-respect, or avoiding his comrades' wrath in their after-after- _after_ life.

" _Seidara_!" Kisame threw away his cloak in mock anger. "That bastard—he washed away the Kazekage! I won't forgive you for this," he roared, unwrapping Samehada and making a beeline for the newly uncovered caves.

The Akatsuki bid farewell to whatever part of their honor was still intact.

"I'll finally end this cursed bloodline of ours!" Deidara threatened, making no sense whatsoever but doing it anyways for dramatic flair. "We'll destroy you, stupid brother of mine!"

"I can't believe Seidara—Deidara's twin brother who obviously exists and is completely unassociated with us—kidnapped the Kazekage _again_. It's much like what he did a few nights ago in that incident in Suna that _also_ didn't involve us at all!" Konan recalled, following her fellow fools and conveniently stating their entire cover up story while within Naruto's hearing range.

Naruto—proving once again how much of a dunce he had the potential of being—took their fighting spirit and lit a metaphorical flame within himself. "I'm going to help them hunt Seidara down! Don't panic, Gaara. I'm coming to save you!"

They all rushed in after their blue-skinned friend, determined to stick with their idiotic excuse until the very end.

Well— _practically_ all of them.

There was, however, one man that had stayed behind.

In all his wooden glory, Sasori had chosen to _not_ fully commit to a new life as an idiot willfully. Instead, he had mumbled an excuse to his sprinting comrades about there still being a bone for him to pick and had been left behind to watch for other reinforcements. Where they were all situated had seemed to have slipped the panicking members' minds.

This was where that brat, with the aid of his very own grandmother, had ended his life.

He settled down comfortably on the floor, resolving to greet his would-be killers. He didn't want revenge or anything; he just figured chatting with a few former foes was more appealing than going river fishing with _those_ morons.

And so he waited.

And waited.

And, to no one's surprise, _waited_ even more, until _finally_ —another hole was punched in their already-tattered wall. Was he just decent enough to make use of existing pathways, or did this new generation just enjoy creating their own unconventional entrances?

Once he got over his grievances for flashy shinobi, Sasori plastered on the most realistic shit-eating grin he could muster—a surprisingly hard feat for an ex-murderer to accomplish considering he had already achieved somewhat eternal peace.

The sound of geta sandals scraping against grains of sands echoed through the now nearly empty Akatsuki base, alerting Sasori of someone's presence. Hearing this, he steadied himself into a more threatening stance. He might have had no intentions of fighting the kid, but that didn't necessarily mean the same for her.

From what he could recall, she was rather hot blooded and probably wouldn't care to listen to any plausible excuse he could come up with.

Tensing his shoulders as the dust started to settle and the sound of footprints came closer, he began to feel that a battle was becoming more and more of a viable outcome. It didn't bother him _too_ much. He'd just dodge this time around.

At long last, enough of the dirt had returned to its place on the ground, and Sasori could make out a silhouette.

The person approaching him was blatantly a girl. In fact, it was a little _too_ obvious that it was a girl—had Sakura been that developed when they had initially fought?

The answer, to Sakura's vexation, would have to be no.

Sasori froze before he could start a typical villainous tirade. The kunoichi standing before him was _definitely_ not the silver-tongued, pink haired brat who had put him in his grave a lifetime ago. This one held a more composed air, and her opal eyes stared into his soul.

He suppressed a shiver. Sasori didn't need to see much else to determine who the new kid was.

Hinata Hyuuga—one of Konoha's heirs.

Now he _really_ had to focus on not engaging with the brat. His comrades would have his head if he managed to indict them as both heir-killers _and_ Kage-kidnappers.

* * *

 **This story is literally so enjoyable and easy for me to write! I hope this quicker update makes up for the last one! Hinata shows up instead of Sakura! I wonder which one of the Akatsukis' actions led to that hehe.**

 **Did this chapter make you giggle? If you enjoyed it (or even if you didn't), please review! I'd love to hit 50 after this chapter, and your reviews and feedback are honestly always taken into account.**

 **I love you guys. Have a great day!~**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

* * *

"A-Ah. I'm sorry! Wrong room," Hinata stuttered, waving her hands in front of her face as she backed out of the hideout.

Had he not wasted so much time waiting for _someone_ to arrive, Sasori would have let her leave after giving such a moronic excuse.

"Wrong room?" Sasori swore he had had it up to _here_ with Konoha's nin. "Is Konoha just filled with _imbeciles_? I've waited here for _hours_ , and you Konoha nin have most likely traveled for a dozen times as long, but you try to leave the second you see _one_ missing-nin? I haven't even attacked you yet!"

Hinata's eyes flicked back and forth between the main entrance of the cave and the one she had forcefully made just moments before. Naruto _had_ advised her to always make a flashy entrance, but she was _seriously_ starting to doubt his logic. It seemed like her abrupt arrival had only served to irritate the red-haired man further—which it definitely had—and she had no plans on making him even _more_ exasperated than he already appeared to be.

From what she could see, though, he didn't seem all that threatening. In fact, if the idea weren't so preposterous, she'd say he almost seemed _talkative_. If keeping him company was all it took for her to survive the encounter, then she could do it.

Probably.

"S-Sorry, I was just startled when I didn't see N-Naruto-kun," she mumbled an excuse for her short lived attempt at escaping, refusing to look him in the eye.

Sasori sighed, giving himself a moment to regain his composure. This girl wasn't Deidara; he couldn't just go off on her for not meeting his high expectations as he usually would. After all, he was trying to be the _good_ guy this time around, and scaring the wits out of the Hyuuga heiress didn't seem like the best place to start. "Just don't be late next time."

Hinata furrowed her eyebrows, so confused that her stutter momentarily disappears. "Be late? But we… didn't have a meeting time."

Sasori refused to accept that the world didn't revolve around his tight schedule. "I understand that you're rightfully ashamed for being so tardy, but there's no need to lie. I've forgiven you."

"B-But—" Hinata was at a loss for words.

"Zip it, Hyuuga."

"O-Okay," she conceded, almost certain that she was in some sort of alternate universe.

He nodded, satisfied with Hinata's lack of a protest. No longer peeved, he figured he'd give the girl what he had stolen from Deidara's pouch as a peace offering for Sakura. His fingers wrapped around an object under his cloak that Hinata couldn't quite discern—a rather sketchy thing to do considering they were _technically_ mortal enemies. Without warning, an unidentified cylindrical _thing_ was tossed her way, inducing a shriek from the jumpy kunoichi.

Sasori winced as her scream echoed in the hideout; he was a bit rusty to shinobi etiquette after nearly a decade in wherever the hell he had been and didn't quite catch how startling his actions were. "Relax, Hyuuga. You're not the pink-haired brat I was waiting for, but you can have her green tea."

Hinata cracked open a tightly squeezed eye. He wasn't fibbing, and she wasn't all that sure if she should've been relieved or worried—she might not have been blown to bits and lost her life, but she sure as hell was losing her mind. Temporarily brushing aside his casual mention of her fellow kunoichi, and not wanting to further agitate her foe-turned-friend, she tentatively picked up the drink. "T-Thank you."

It was sealed, indicating that—unless the Akatsuki has suddenly decided to abandon their criminal ways to head into the food industry—it was most likely safe to consume.

But that didn't mean she would just recklessly drink it; Konoha nin could be stupid, but they were _usually_ not _that_ stupid.

Taking notice of her reluctance to take have some of the drink, Sasori pulled out a similar can of his own. Purposely moving as slowly as he could to prove to the girl that the drink was safe, he took the first swig. It wouldn't have affected him all that much even if it _were_ poisoned—he didn't have a digestive system anymore—but she didn't know that.

Convinced that there wasn't much else to lose, Hinata followed suit.

Realizing that standing there in silence would be much more agonizing than making conversation, Hinata uncharacteristically spoke first. "S-So you were waiting for Sakura-san?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "San? You address someone around the same age as you with _san_?"

She blushed as he pointed this out—it was a verbal habit that was telling of how lowly she regarded herself. With a strained smile, she began to explain. "I-I simply want to be respectful. Sakura-san trains under Hokage-sama, a-and she's much more experienced than me with—"

Sasori waved her words away as nonsensical reasoning. "And? You're the _prestigious_ Hyuuga clan's heiress. Haruno's team just happens to be dispositioned to become your generation's sannin. You don't have to worry about becoming a good shinobi in the way that she's one, just put forth the effort, and you'll be able to find your own niche to excel in. I'd still drop that stutter, though."

Hinata blushed at his words—though not worded particularly kindly, if she looked at it a certain way—no matter how ludicrous it was to imagine—he _was_ trying to give her a confidence boost. Most of her peers had just accepted her stutter as an innate piece of her, never really trying all that hard to change the habit in fear of hurting her feelings. At the very least, she could attempt to beat down the timid tic now. "Thank you."

Knowing that he wouldn't get much more of a response from her, Sasori addressed the question she had originally asked with one of his own. "Where _is_ Haruno, though?"

Hinata didn't really get _why_ he wanted to know, but she figured it wouldn't do much harm to tell him—he _was_ , after all, part of the reason why Hinata had to go in Sakura's place. "Sakura-san remained in Suna so as to create more antidotes for the men that you poisoned."

Sasori feigned confusion. "Me? Poisoning someone? You have the wrong person in mind, Hyuuga. Perhaps you're thinking of the blasted puppet master that's teamed up with Seidara, Deidara's twin brother."

"I've never heard of a nin by the name of Sei—"

Sasori cut her off with a loud bark of laughter. "Really! That Seidara is just so cunning, he's even hidden his existence from _us_ for years."

Hinata looked dubious, but chose not to comment further. If the world was strange enough to place her in a situation where she would sip green tea and receive a pep talk from a man that was deemed as one of her village's greatest enemies, then who the hell was she to question the existence of evil twins?

As Hinata pondered just how sane she was, they lapsed into silence.

Understanding that he'd have to put in more effort to get the timid girl to speak, Sasori plopped down on the ground, sitting cross-legged to get comfortable. This was going to be a long process. "Well, while we wait for the rest of your crowd to trickle in, let's have a chat, shall we?"

Hinata gulped. This was _not_ what she had signed up for when she began her career as a shinobi.

"Sure…"

* * *

The Akatsuki were cursed, and—as they were bumbling down a mysterious cave system to chase after the goddamned _raft_ of a Kazekage—every single one of them knew it. Not even the damndest of men could have been through the ringer as many times as they've had to.

There was no doubt about it. Kami himself had to be conspiring against them.

"You washed away the Kazekage, un," Deidara muttered as he ran up to Kisame. " _You washed away the fuckin' Kazekage._ "

"Oh fuck off, why don't you? You're the one who dragged him into our hideout in the first place!" Kisame snapped back. "If anyone's to be blamed for this mess, it's you."

Deidara let the valid accusation slip over his head. As if Kisame's claim hadn't been heard, Deidara continued to mouth off his complaints. "What the hell was my hair cut for then, un? If we don't fish out the Kazekage from _your_ river, I'm going to be bald _and_ dead!"

"If you two say another word that incriminates us, or even makes us sound the _slightest_ bit like suspicious people…" Nagato wedged himself in between the bickering pair, leaving the latter half of his threat unsaid to let the Akatsuki's morbid imagination fill in the blanks. In reality, he didn't have it in him to be all that threatening anymore, but his idiotic members didn't have to know that just yet.

Lost pizzaz aside, his words were nevertheless frightening. It was quite remarkable how scary a frail man like Nagato could be. An eternity could pass without contact between the members of the Akatsuki, and Nagato would _still_ undoubtedly be their leader. As much as they disliked admitting it, following his orders had eventually come to them as naturally as _breathing_ had, and that hadn't changed over the years.

And so, Deidara and Kisame ceased their useless argument.

Only to have the peace achieved by the silence be interrupted by the _other_ blond in their presence.

"Where the hell is that Seidara bastard?! I'll destroy him for what he did to Suna!" Naruto swore, sprinting up to the front of their search party.

Deidara shuddered, knowing fully well that if he hadn't been bald, and if Naruto hadn't been a complete dunce, then all of the jinchuuriki's rage would've been directed entirely at him. Perhaps he should be thanking his lucky stars for only sacrificing his mane to avoid Naruto's wrath. He'd seen enough of the Fourth Shinobi World War to know that being on Naruto's good side was well worth his hair—regardless of how much time he had spent grooming it.

"Calm down, kid. We'll find your friend," Kakuzu grunted, earnestly trying to gain Konoha's favor. As much as he'd like to pretend otherwise, Hidan had been a good partner to him, and his time spent in isolate for who _knows_ how long had only highlighted that. Hidan had earned him a decent amount of money from bounties; rescuing the Jashinist from Konoha's gratingly self-righteous clutches was the least he could do in return.

To their horror, Naruto's eyes began glistening in what looked to be tears.

"You guys are so supportive," the blond sobbed. "I can't believe Konoha treated you all so badly! After today, we'll turn over a new leaf! I swear on my future as the Hokage, dattebayo!"

So surprised at how sincerely regretful Naruto sounded over Konoha's rightfully placed grudge against them, the Akatsuki failed to notice that the windy cave system had finally ended. As their eyes adjusted to the sudden flood of light, they were met with a sight even more horrific than that of a drowned Kazekage.

They were above ground again—the hidden caves had simply been another way to access their hideout—but their shit security was the least of their worries. Standing in front of them, frozen in shock, was Team Gai, accompanied by an equally baffled Kakashi and a drenched—and very much conscious—Gaara.

There were more things wrong with the picture than they could count. In front of them was imminent death and to the right of the ragtag criminals was a profusely crying jinchuuriki who was _apologizing_ to them for being angry at their attempts to take his life.

The Akatsuki walked back into the cave.

* * *

 **D: Sorry this update took a bit longer than usual. Summer school has started. I'm taking Calc at a local college and I'm already so overwhelmed. I'll still be updating, but probably once every week and a half now as opposed to the weekly updates. Not a drastic change, but I just thought I'd inform you guys.**

 **Did you guys enjoy this chapter? I had so much fun writing Sasori and Hinata's interaction lol.**

 **If you guys did like it, please review! It motivates me a helluva lot, especially when all I want to do is nap when I get home from class.**

 **Have a great day!~**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

* * *

When prospects are low, go with the flow.

Ignoring the incredulous cries of some of their would-be killers from a past life, the Akatsuki walked back towards their hideout with utmost ease. If you were to overlook the damp walls, the raging river, and the eerie echo, it'd be easy to mistake their casual stroll for a walk through the park.

"Are they… Are they trying to escape?" Neji asked, at a loss for words.

"They aren't exactly… running," Kakashi commented, not sure if it was morally right to attack men with their backs turned. Would that, too, make him trash? Would it make him worse than trash?

"What are you idiots doing? Go after them!" Tenten snapped, but she, too, was wavering. Was that even the Akatsuki? Surely, if it _had_ been the notorious group, they would've attacked, right? Clearly they had the advantage if they were all together, right?

Gaara remained in place. It was true that the Akatsuki were unguarded and could've easily been taken out in that moment, but he'd be damned before he'd step another inch towards what seemed to be an infectious bout of stupidity.

Naruto seethed at his comrades. "Look what you've done! You guys have gone and scared them off!"

"What are you _talking_ about, Naruto? With that many of them here, we should've been the ones to have been scared off by them," Kakashi cried incredulous, not understanding why his former student was so outraged at the Akatsuki's exit. "Didn't we just _save_ you from them anyhow?

"No." Tears began to flow. As if he were the emotional, angsty teen protagonist of a cliche novel about one breaking out of their parents' clutches, Naruto spoke the next line with utmost in his tone. "They saved me from _you_."

Before anyone could comment on just how absurd the accusation was, Naruto was long gone, having decided to chase after his new found friends.

In the cave, the Akatsuki, too, were lost in another moment of absurdity.

"Shouldn't we go back and try to sell the whole Seidara thing to them, un?"

"Perhaps if we all pretend that our strange method of retreating is a normality, the Kazekage's rescue team will come to believe that _they're_ the ones who've lost their minds," Itachi hummed thoughtfully, earning an annoyed side glance from his comrades for his subtle insinuation that the _Akatsuki_ were the ones who had gone crazy. Had he missed the part where Konoha ordered the mass execution of an entire founding clan? Or when one of its highest ranked nin implanted fuckin' _eyes_ into his _arm_?

"Hey! We might've once been a group of indisputably criminally insane assholes, but we've turned over a new leaf, goddamn it!" Deidara snapped, shooting daggers at his foe-turned-somewhat-of-a-friend. "If anyone here could be considered remotely off of their rockers, it'd be the goddamned Konoha nin behind us! There's Hidan too, but he's a little busy being a literal piece of shit and fertilizing Konoha's forests, so he doesn't count."

"Hidan wasn't _that_ bad. Without his killings, we'd have gone bankrupt ages ago," Kakuzu pointed out.

"To hell with money. Maybe if we had been bankrupt, we wouldn't have had the means to walk into our deaths in the way that we did," Konan muttered to herself.

"I'm starting to think death would be a privilege if it means getting away from you idiots," Kisame snorted, being the pot that was calling his fellow kettles, pans, and other varying kitchen appliances black.

The bickering might've evolved into another round of unintentional warfare between the Akatsuki members had they not been interrupted by the same blond who had led them to their graves decades ago.

"Oi, Akatsuki guys! Hold up!" The sound of sandals slapping against the dampened ground resounded throughout the cave.

They sped up.

Collectively, they braced themselves for what looked to be imminent death. They were certain that the killing blow would be dealt in just a few seconds—a swift end to their brief lives. There was no use fighting back, though. They had forsaken their resolve to spite the world long, _long_ ago—the whole dying and spending a decade or so meditating thing could do that to a person.

In truth, all they wanted was to live somewhat peaceful lives, but it was being proven to have been a silly dream from the very start. Shinobi whose hands had been sullied with the blood of so many innocents had no right to have their sins washed away.

And their sins _weren't_ washed away.

In the end, what ended up being washed away was the Akatsuki themselves.

In his hurry to catch up with his newfound friends, Naruto had recklessly created fifty or so shadow clones, overcrowding the cave and sending the group tumbling into the waters. By the time it registered in their heads, they'd already gotten caught up in the current—they were rusty at this ninja bullshit, goddamnit!

Shinobi weren't supposed to be _under_ water. They did fine and dandy when they were walking _on_ it, but being stuck _in_ it? That was a whole other story.

The Akatsuki were, if they weren't already before, screwed.

Without full control over their chakra reserves and how much they released in a single jutsu, one wrong move from any of them could spell out a third death for _all_ of them. Acting rashly wasn't an option, and so, the Akatuski found themselves pulled under the water, sputtering and coughing and making a goddamn fool out of themselves.

If someone were to tell Nagato that one day he'd be rescued from drowning by Konoha's forces, he would've called them crazier than him—a feat rather hard to accomplish considering he was once delusional enough to try to _become_ God—but as it had proven time and time again, Fate was, if anything, unpredictable.

What little distance they had created between themselves and the Konoha nin diminished as the river brought them right back to where they started. Clearly able to discern that the Akatsuki were struggling to find a way out of the waters without killing themselves in the process, the Konoha nin—with their ever-so-eager-to-help hearts—dove in after them.

"Don't give up on me yet, guys!" Naruto's clones chorused as they entered the river.

" _Naruto_ …" Kakashi trailed off, used to his disciples reckless behavior. The silver haired man sighed before kicking off his sandals—if the student's role was to careless, then the sensei's job was to aid in whatever mess was created through that carelessness.

As the splash made by Kakashi's entrance into the water was seen, Gai piped up. "If my rival will jump into these waters, then as will I!"

"Ah, I see! We're going to save the Akatsuki? Redeeming the villains is certainly a youthful thing to do!" Lee exclaimed before he followed his sensei in.

Neji and Tenten exchanged a sidelong glance as they resolved to do as their odd sensei did. It was, after all, the duty of a student to make sure that their ever so comically moronic counterparts remained alive.

Gaara took a half second to stare at them, then began walking in the general direction of Suna. He was the goddamned Kazekage for Kami's sake, he didn't have time for their shenanigans.

Only then, as the Akatsuki were dragged out of the waters by nin who they had once sworn to destroy, did they realize just how insanely their situation was being skewed.

Screw ruining the universe. At the level of absurdity that they were heading towards, they might as well have gone and raged a war against God himself.

When the sheepish criminals were finally all fished out of the river, embarrassed thank-yous chorused from the drenched group. They might not have been raised the best of times, but they sure as hell were raised somewhat right. At the very least, they knew when a thank you was well overdue. After all, the people in front of them—as long as the Akatsuki's new hero role didn't screw things up too badly—would eventually end up saving the world.

For a brief moment—though it was a stretch if they'd ever seen one—the two groups seemed almost at _peace_ with one another. Perhaps it was due to a sense of comradery from their rescue effort, or even partially influenced by Naruto's naivety. It was a miracle; it was beautiful, truly. It was, in fact, plenty of things.

It was also—once they realized they were missing two very important people—short lived.

"Has anyone seen Hinata-sama?"

"Where the hell did Sasori go, un?"

The two questions were asked at the exact same time as the circles regrouped among themselves.

"Didn't Hinata-chan say something about going ahead of all of us to find Naruto-kun?"

"Didn't Sasori say something shady about staying behind to put an end to some unfinished business of some sort?"

Questions that came in response, too, were voiced at the same time.

Collectively, horror dawned on both parties.

They replied to their respective questions together. "We need to go to the hideout."

Faster than they had run after their driftwood of a Kazekage, and faster than they had sped walked away from Konoha's greatest idiots, the Akatsuki made their way back through the caves. Behind them, Konoha's nin followed closely, looking just as distraught over the idea of their _motherfuckin' Hyuuga Heiress_ occupying the same room as a man who made _dolls_ out of _corpses_.

What they saw as they neared the lair was even more horrific than anything that their feeble imaginations could possibly conjure. In terms of things that came as a surprise to the Akatsuki, getting rescued by Konoha's forces paled in comparison to what they walked in on.

"So you're telling me," Sasori started, already sounding incredulous before his sentence was even said, "that you've been fawning over the kid for what—a decade? And that brat hasn't acknowledged you in the slightest? He sounds like a complete moron. And your cousin, sheesh. Now there's a hardass if I've ever seen one."

"I know! Isn't it just awful, Sasori-san?" Hinata's delicate voiced sounded more enthusiastic than they had ever heard it. "Ah, but your situation sounds even more strenuous on the mind. A reckless man who just blows things up on a whim? An edgy man who could put even Sasuke-san to shame with his mysterious aura and a burden that weighs down on him more than anything such humble people as we could ever dream of? No wonder you've learned which brand of green tea is best for soothing one's soul!"

The two sat at a comfortable distance from each other, holding warmed cans of green tea in their hands and leaning in to show interest as the other spoke. If any passerby who just so happened to be in the base of a nation-toppling criminal organization saw them, they'd surely mistake them for a pair of lifelong friends.

"They really are stupid, aren't they?" Sasori hummed thoughtfully as he took a sip.

"They really are!" Hinata nodded fervently to show her agreeance.

The rest of the Akatsuki, and their accompanying Konoha nin, were shellshocked as they stared at the friendly duo. Never, in all three of their lives, had the Akatsuki seen their local puppeteer look so okay with socializing with someone, and the Konoha shinobi were just as surprised to see their ever so docile heiress act so unreserved.

"Aren't they just insulting us, un?" Deidara asked.

"They indeed are, Deidara-san," Neji replied, suddenly on good terms with the boisterous blond.

"I wonder who Hinata-chan is talking about! Whoever the guy is that she has a crush on is a dumbass," Naruto laughed.

Gai and Kakashi exchanged looks, their two decade-long friendship having given them the ability to practically read each other's minds. Without saying a word, they backtracked in the pathway that the odd group had originally come from.

Team Gai's telepathic communication abilities were a little less refined than their sensei's. Though the ideas they had were more often the same than not, they had to voice them aloud just to be _extra_ sure.

"They're heading back towards Suna, right?" Tenten asked Neji, the only teammate of hers that was still present due to Lee not giving a damn as to where he was as long as Gai-sensei was there with him.

"Yep."

The two started in the direction that the rest of their team had gone.

The Akatsuki, too, began their own psychic chat. Reaching the same conclusion, they called after the strange lot whose company they had decided was much more preferable to the strange shittalking show they were being forced to watch.

"Oi, Konoha! You have room for a half a dozen more on the way back?"

* * *

 **I seriously have so much writing this fanfic lmao. I truly believe that if the Akatsuki and Konoha nin were born in a different time, they wold've gotten along just fine. Sasori and Hinata being the iconic gossiping duo that they are made me giggle while writing it lol.**

 **Did you guys like the chapter? Did it make you laugh? Don't worry, there _will_ be a plot that'll slowly unravel. Just be patient and enjoy the comedy right now, my dear readers! Also, hooray, we're so close to 100 followers! **

**If you enjoyed, please leave a review! My exhausted student-ass will greatly appreciate it. :D**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

* * *

"The worst of the Akatsuki?" Sasori repeated the Hyuuga heiress' question, deliberately speaking slowly so as to drag it out. That was a difficult topic to think about. By all means, they were all quite horrible in their own right, but Hinata wasn't referring to their moral compasses—though those should have rightfully been questioned too. She was wondering about something much more innocuous.

"Kakuzu's as ugly as sin, but Deidara's only attractive if he's mistaken for a kunoichi." He paused to mull over the rest of his possible answers. "I'm sure I'm not on the top of anyone's list for most attractive of our organization—making puppets out of corpses must have certainly docked a few points off—but I don't think I'm all that hideous, either."

Hinata giggled at the versatile language used to insult his comrades, and though she tried to hide it behind her hand, her effort was to no avail. Everyone heard the goddamned _Hyuuga heiress'_ laughter over _insults_ about them loud and clear.

"I-I don't think you're bad looking, Sasori-san. I don't think anyone in the A-Akatsuki is," she added, though it did little to help the rest of the Akatsuki's damaged egos.

"Thanks, Hyuuga."

"W-Would you like to know what I think of Konoha's nin?" Hinata asked, wanting to keep the conversation going regardless of how many insults she had to hurl at her own friends. Surely they couldn't hear her gossiping, right?

Wrong.

The Konoha nin and their new friends had walked out of the hideout together, heading towards Suna with the unwanted gossiping duo trailing behind them. Nevertheless—though they'd rather endure Kakashi's One Thousand Years of Death than admit it—they eagerly eavesdropped on whatever topics the pair were discussing. Who _wouldn't_ want to know the secrets that someone—especially someone as trusted as the ever so quiet Hinata—could have?

"Oh? Do tell," Sasori replied nonchalantly, not wanting to seem _too_ interested in where their conversation was heading.

"Hmm…" Hinata hummed, not noticing that every person in front of them had begun to walk slower so as to get into the hearing range of her soft voice. "Naruto-kun, well, you already know what I think of _him_. Lee-san's eyebrows and outfit choices are… _charming_ , and Neji-nii-san has… quite nice… _hair_."

As her words registered in their minds, Neji began contemplating how his hair would look if cut, and Lee pondered asking one of the ladies for eyebrow waxing tips—his bodysuit, however, was going to stay even if Buddha himself descended from Nirvana to beg him to rid himself of the green atrocity. Hinata might not have said anything especially rude, but her pauses and odd emphasis on certain things made what she didn't find appealing quite obvious.

Naruto, however—as the only person on the Kami-forsaken planet that _wasn't_ aware of Hinata's feelings for him—didn't know _what_ to make of her words, and simply sulked at her lack of explanation. With his name being paired along with the likes of Neji and Lee, it wasn't so farfetched for him to guess that Hinata regarded him in the same way that she regarded the other two fashion-blind idiots.

Tenten—as the only logical one in the entire goddamned universe—slung her arm over Naruto's shoulders, giving him a reassuring grin. "Don't worry too much about it, Naruto."

Hinata, being too far behind to hear and understand Tenten's intentions with her familiar way of touching Naruto, misinterpreted the gesture. Lacking even a _trace_ of gentleness in her tone, she added onto her list. "Tenten-san has lopsided buns. I won't specify which buns I'm referring to."

"That was neither subtle _or_ quiet, _and_ you lost your stutter!" Tenten cried in disbelief, though—just like in canon—no one (not even the author) paid her much mind.

Ignoring the shift in mood caused by their gossiping, Sasori dragged in a whole other monstrosity to discuss. "If there _are_ any members in the Akatsuki that are considered attractive, though, you probably won't think so once you hear about their oddities."

Hinata gave him a curious look, motioning for him to continue as everyone leaned in even closer to the duo.

"Well," Sasori began, eyes obviously dead set on their local Uchiha, " _one_ of our members enjoys saran wrapping sticks of dango to hide inside his cloak. He casts genjutsu on us and eats the dango while Leader debriefs us during meetings."

Itachi squirmed as he walked, moving in a way that seemed suspiciously similar to what someone would do if they were trying to stuff something deeper into their pockets.

Before Nagato can say something snappy about Itachi's apparent lack of respect for him, he becomes Sasori's next victim of slander. "Don't even get me started on Leader, though. Whenever he's pissed at Konan, he goes and gives himself another piercing. I think he's at forty now? Maybe fifty? I don't know, but there's definitely something a little nutty in having a habit that radical."

"I almost forgot!" The mention of Konan lit up another lightbulb in Sasori's head. "Did you know that Konan makes origami figures of the rest of the Akatsuki members, and she plays family with them when she's bored? Leader, of course, is always the father, and she, too, is stagnant in her role of mother in her game."

Hinata, along with the rest of her friends from Konoha, didn't know how to react to the flood of the useless-but-good-for-blackmailing-purposes information. Somehow—even after they'd watched the Akatsuki get exploded, drowned, and caught up in childish bickering—Konoha's expectations for the Akatsuki's level of maturity dropped even lower than it already had.

And Sasori still wasn't done yet.

"Don't even get me started on the rest of these morons. The red tint to the cave walls? Hidan was just too lazy to do as Leader asked and dump the excess blood from his sacrifices in a more isolated location, so he just used it as paint. Every month or so, Kisame enjoys seeing whether or not his fear of sushi has subsided, but he tears up each time it touches the tip of his tongue anyways. Kakuzu shaves his arms and legs because it stops the hair from getting in the way of his tentacles, and that idiot Deidara? Well, his mere existence is embarrassing enough. I don't know much about the snake bastard, but aren't we all pretty certain he's into children?"

Sasori had no qualms against exposing his comrades; dying had put a lot of things into perspective for him. Allegiances to temporary things like villages and criminal organizations were silly to have. Now was as good of a time as any to start coming clean about the Akatsuki's deepest, darkest secrets—even if the rest of the Akatsuki wasn't quite so ready for Konoha to know them that intimately.

Once Sasori stopped speaking, the eavesdroppers breathed a premature sigh of relief.

If the new Konoha-Akatsuki anti-bullying alliance thought they had had enough, then they didn't know what was coming.

"How mortifying!" Hinata gasped, and everyone was certain she'd bring a swift end to their suffering by reprimanding the redhead for his loose lips.

They were horribly wrong.

"It's almost as bad as Lee-san's secret red bodysuit he has stashed in his supply bag, or Nej-nii-san hoping to lead the Hyuuga clan purely for the sake of having more, as he put it, 'slaves to brush his superior, silky hair.'" The two in question paled as they lost whatever was left of their dignity, but Konoha's agony didn't stop there. "Oh! There's also Tenten's lopsided buns—"

"You already mentioned them!"

"—and Naruto's secret affair with pho. Kakashi-sensei actually buys _real_ novels—they're all very lengthy, innocent works of fiction—but he only reads them in the comfort of his own apartment. Sakura-chan writes fanfiction about Sasuke-san in her journal—she accidentally handed it over to me once—and Ino accidentally became a high ranking officer in Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Force. Sai-san has a picture book that documents all of these things."

As the former enemies let the dirty details sink in, they came to the conclusion that perhaps—aside from the _obviously_ evil puppetmaster and heiress—their foes weren't so bad. After all, if anyone were truly malicious, then they'd just simply expose these secrets.

No one in their company had the _audacity_ to do something as _awful_ as _that_ , right?

Kakashi and Nagato exchanged a look—finally feeling as if they were both on the same page.

"We're never mentioning these things to anyone, right?"

"My lips are as sealed as a tailed beast."

"Why the hell are we letting them ridicule us like this, un?" Deidara asked—only brave enough to do so because Sasori had deemed _all_ his characteristics as something to be embarrassed of.

"Because those two hold the power to destroy us with just a few words," Konan answered, more distraught now over her roleplaying hobby being exposed than she had been when she was betrayed and stabbed to death. Clearly, her priorities were set straight.

"How essential are they _really_ to the storyline anyways?" Kisame asked, hands a little _too_ close to Samehada's hilt for comfort.

"If _you_ would like to wage war against the entire Hyuuga clan, then you can do so by yourself," Itachi shot his partner's silent suggestion down, walking faster to move away from the group. As long as he wasn't having hallucinations induced by being exposed in such a ruthless manner, then they were nearing Suna's great wall.

Unfortunately, Itachi's travelling companions aren't observant enough to note the building that just barely stood out in the horizon. They continued to bicker.

"From what that heiress is saying, the other Hyuuga kid is about to start a coup on his _own_ clan for the sake of his hair health anyways," Deidara snorted.

"At least my lengthy hair is well taken care of, unlike… whatever _that_ is," Neji shot back, a look of disgust plastered onto his face as he gestured towards Deidara's mane.

"You already argue enough with the puppet, Deidara. Are you really going to waste oxygen on producing more idiotic words? That's almost as much of a pity as wasting money is," Kakuzu criticized, earning a glare from the blond who was just about ready to make _everyone_ his archnemesis.

"Grooming the hair on my head is a hell of a lot better than grooming the hair on my legs, Kakuzu, un. Is that where all my shaving razors have disappeared to?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "I'd rather burn the entire organization's budget than borrow something as disgusting as a shaving razor of yours."

Eyeing them suspiciously, Tenten leaned over to whisper to the Akatsuki member standing beside her—Konan. "I thought you guys were supposed to have _changed_."

To her credit, Konan looked genuinely embarrassed to be associated with the biggest fools in the vicinity. "If they're not leaving a trail of corpses in their wake, then they _have_ changed."

Tenten would've liked to say more, but any criticism she could have had about the Akatsuki died in her throat the moment her _own_ comrades began to quarrel among themselves.

Gai-sensei sniffled. "I can't believe you prefer _red_ bodysuits, Lee."

"G-Gai-sensei," Lee croaked, unable to say much else in his own defense. In the eyes of his sensei, and in his own eyes by default, he had committed a crime more atrocious than anything that even the Akatsuki were capable of doing. He had betrayed his sensei; he had tarnished the legacy of the green bodysuit.

He would never forgive himself for this sin.

"Lee, why are you so worried about likin' a different color? Isn't it all the same?" Naruto asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Neji shook his head, scoffing arrogantly at his blond friend's ignorance. "You don't know how sacred the bodysuits are to Team Gai's dynamic. It's as much of a betrayal to our team as your sensei reading _real_ novels is. To go against a decade long plot element like that—how outrageous!"

Kakashi buried his nose further into his Icha Icha book—so close to where it was obvious that he wasn't _actually_ reading anything.

Naruto made a face at his haughty-but-good-natured friend. "At least Kakashi's fake habit isn't as bad as you faking an entire plot device! You only wanted control of the Hyuuga clan for your _hair's_ sake. Did you even mean any of the shit you said about destiny during your fight with Hinata-chan?!"

He, of course, knew full well that Neji _was_ completely genuine during the fight, but this whole spiel was made for the sake of comedy, goddamnit!

"Will you all just _shut it_?" Tenten and Konan demanded in unison, both of them having taken on the role of the exasperated mother figure.

"We're at Suna," Tenten added.

No longer distracted by their pointless squabbling, they all turned towards the front of their travelling group to confirm that they, indeed, had reached Suna. In fact, their arrival at Suna could even be said to have been _anticipated_ if the massive group of nin who were all armed to the teeth—who were all coincidentally aiming their weapons towards the ragged group—meant anything.

Naruto laughed nervously as a lone kunai missed his head by a few centimeters. "H-Hey, Gaara! It's just us!"

Gaara stood at the head of the army, arms crossed in a confident stance as he regarded the group standing before him. If the Akatsuki squinted, he would look eerily similar to how he had appeared during the start of the Fourth Shinobi World War. There _were_ a few differences, though—like the still-smoking, singed hair of his this time around, and the awkward way his drenched clothing clung to his body to reveal _every single bit of his body_. It was so tight that he might as well have not worn clothing at all!

"You're accompanying the enemy," Gaara spoke boredly, acting ignorant to the not-so-child-friendly state of his garb. "The enemy who _kidnapped_ me."

The Akatsuki looked at the Konoha nin, both of them reaching the same conclusion. Sure, they could blame the entire scandal on their carefully crafted Seidara story, but what was the fun in that? After all, their journey back had revealed a far greater enemy. It was an enemy more despicable than even Lucifer, himself, could ever dream to be—an enemy more malicious than what every Naruto villain, both living and dead, would be if they were all smushed together.

Both sides turned around, fingers pointed.

"It was them."

Hinata and Sasori froze.

It took a good minute for Gaara to settle on how to react to the new tidbit of information. He knew damn well that there was no way in hell the Hyuuga heiress could be involved in his kidnapping, but this could be a golden opportunity for his village. If he accepted their obvious lie, he'd have leverage over Konoha _and_ have his village's most notorious criminal in his custody.

Slowly but surely, he nodded to display his approval for their new defense.

"The rest of you can recuperate in the village center." He stopped to shoot an icy glare at the two new scapegoats. "You two will be escorted into my office."

It was better off like this anyways. After all, who in their right minds—aside from the obviously mentally impaired Konoha nin—would have bought the Seidara excuse?

He spoke too soon.

"Eh? Wasn't it that dude's brother, Seidara, who orchestrated the whole thing?" Kankuro asked, though all but Temari ignored him.

"I do believe that's what's circulating in the underground circles, Gaara," Temari confirmed.

"Wait a minute, un. How did _they_ already find out about the Seidara thing?! We _just_ left the hideout, un!" Deidara exclaimed, asking the question that was weighing on all of their minds and not giving a damn about the cover story anymore. Even someone as mentally unstable as _him_ couldn't wrap his head around how people _just so happened_ to have all the knowledge in the world at convenient times.

"Isn't it self explanatory?" Temari gestured for Gaara to lift her up with his sand so that she could tower over Deidara while addressing him. "One of your associates' potential sacrifices managed to escape while you _idiots_ fought among your own ranks. The man who got away told a friend, who told a friend, who told one of _his_ friends, and now the entire world knows of your brother's existence. We've caught you before you could lie now, Akatsuki. You're free to go, but I swear on my life I'll hunt down the man who kidnapped by baby brother."

She laughed maniacally as revealed her trump card, not realizing that _she_ had been the one that had been duped. Behind her, Suna's troops rallied for Seidara's head, completely forgetting about Sasori and Hinata's existence.

Gaara turned around. How would he go about resigning as the Kazekage, again?

The Akatsuki refrained from correcting the Suna nin—knocking clearly delusional people down a few pegs wouldn't bring any kind of satisfaction to them. Instead, they, along with Konoha, followed Gaara into the village, bypassing the distracted troops without any trouble.

Naruto began to second guess his dream of becoming Hokage. Were all Kages used as doormats by their citizens?

"Come on, Naruto." Kakashi ushered for his student to trail along after him. "I'll treat you to some rame—uh, I mean _pho_."

Naruto quietly did as told.

* * *

 **Y'all… I giggled so much while writing this chapter! Literally, Hinata and Sasori are my favorite characters to write so far. How did you guys feel about Konoha and the Akatsuki's deepest, darkest secrets? Which one made you laugh the most? I broke the fourth wall a couple times in this chapter, did you catch it? :D**

 **If you enjoyed the chapter, please leave a review, even if you've already left one! I swear it's not repetitive in the slightest. It just feels good to know that you guys are still enjoying this fanfic. Plus, I'd love love** _ **love**_ **it if we could reach 100 reviews! (And if you see any typos, please tell me! They're so embarrassing to make.)  
**

 **As always, have a fantastic day! ~**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto**

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"I-I can't believe you t-tried to pin G-Gaara-san's kidnapping on m-me," Hinata stuttered, finally coming to her senses now that food was in her belly. After just a few bites of pho, the hunger-driven vixen she had become was nowhere to be seen, and now she sat in near-tears while facing her lifelong crush.

"What she means to say is, you're really quite an insufferable, ignorant brat and—" Sasori's horrible translation for the Heiress' gently spoken words was thankfully cut short by a spoonful of noodles shoved into his mouth courtesy of his _own_ blond, pain-in-the-ass.

The move was wholly unlike something Deidara would pull. He was _the_ _worst_ out of all the Akatsuki when it came to following along with social cues, but the usually-indifferent pyromaniac (in terms of silly things like romance) just felt _bad_ for the girl. Here this meek _princess_ was, suddenly falling under the influence of a man who Deidara considered to be the most sardonic bastard within the vicinity. It was a duo made in hell! An absolute atrocity. Letting Sasori goad her as he wished—though the redhead might not have meant any real harm by what he'd accidentally trigger—would be as cruel as leaving a helpless bunny to the mercy of starved wolves.

"Hey! Be careful, you'll stain me, moron. This is agarwood!" Sasori snapped, his attention now drawn away from the Hyuuga.

Deidara rolled his eyes—as if the rarity of the wood Sasori used would ever mean anything to him. "If you keep making the Hyuuga heiress suffer like that, Konoha's gonna end up doing more than just staining your wood, un."

"Suffer?" Sasori raised an eyebrow. "I'm just giving the brat some backbone."

"And how's that turning out?" Deidara asked, looking pointedly at the pair that had gotten dragged into Sasori's little experiment.

Hinata was staring up at Naruto with the purest of looks. Her doe eyes looked at him with a mixture of sadness and remorse, unsuccessfully guilting the dense blond. Naruto wasn't even looking her way, his head being held low as he attempted to slurp up pho without anyone noticing.

"I can't believe you let everyone know that I like _pho_! _Pho_! It's not even Japanese! How on earth will the franchise handle a change in a decade long running gag?!" Naruto exclaimed, clearly distraught at the rather minor reveal.

"F-Franchise?" Hinata echoed, not enough of a main character to break the fourth wall.

Naruto ignored her confusion, choosing instead to frantically mutter something about sales dropping and how his name—a popular ramen topping—had completely lost his purpose.

While Naruto questioned the purpose of his existence Kisame strolled over to sling an arm around Hinata's shoulders. He looked absolutely _wasted_ , his blue skin now tinged _purple_ near the gills on his cheeks. Slurring his words, he made a proposition to the clearly mortified girl. "Hyuuga, dontcha worry 'bout it. That brat's just gonna die a virgin anyways. Join the Akatsuki, and we'll teach ya' how ta' whoop that dick's ass!"

Hinata fainted, though to her credit, she had lasted through a helluva lot that day before she finally did her signature move.

Meanwhile the rest of the Akatsuki looked just about ready to abandon one of their own.

"Why is Kisame intoxicated?" Itachi asked. It was a damn real indicator that something was horribly, _horribly_ wrong when the all-knowing _Itachi Uchiha_ didn't understand what was going on.

"There's no sake in here, un. I already tried ordering some," Deidara helpfully informed.

Sasori smacked the blond's forehead with the palm of his hand—a rather painful move to subject Deidara to considering his entire body was constructed of very hard, very sturdy wood. "I knew you were an idiot, but I didn't think you were _that_ much of an idiot. Do you _not_ remember what happened the last time you consumed too much alcohol?"

Deidara, in fact, did _not_ remember what happened the last time he consumed too much alcohol, but judging by the shivers that the rest of the Akatsuki were having, they evidently did. He figured it'd be safer not to ask. "A-Anyways, how's the shark drunk if there's nothing to drink here, un?"

"He's a shark," Konan answered without any elaboration.

Everyone—even Nagato, who usually went along with whatever his close friend said—looked at her, bemused.

"What?"

"He's a shark," she reiterated.

"But what does that have to do with—"

"Ah," Sasori interrupted as he finally got what Konan was insinuation. "People get intoxicated by liquids, so would someone with shark genes in them get the same effect from a certain kind of air?"

"I do recall Kisame vocalizing that our alcohol does little for him," Itachi added.

"He's getting shitfaced from the air?" Deidara asked, adorning an amused grin as he looked at his fumbling comrade.

"The air in Suna is rather dry. Perhaps the climate has fermented it in a sense?" Sasori mused.

"Either way, we need to leave _immediately_ if we don't want a diplomatic disaster on our hands," Nagato commanded, recalling just how destructive the already-rowdy organization could be while under the influence. Not even a decade in purgatory could erase memories as traumatic as those ones from his mind.

He spoke too late.

Kisame still had his arm around the unconscious Hyuuga heiress, now using her as his impromptu therapist as he rambled on about his fellow Akatsuki members' faults from before they were revived—as in, all their atrocities that rightfully painted them as a murderous, malicious, terrorist organization.

Nagato—if it were possible—grew even paler.

Before the reformed Akatsuki could drag their local shark man away from the vulnerable girl to preserve the sanctity of their own lives, Neji took notice of his cousin's plight.

"How dare you say such vulgar things to Hinata-sama?" he yelled, storming over towards the drunken man.

"Hinata-sama, my ass," Kisame snorted, making Neji's vision go red. "What kinda heiress makes ya' all look like fools. She should be with us—other fools."

"Hinata-chan can't join the Akatsuki," Naruto protested, though not for the reasons that everyone else had assumed were the ones that had driven him to speak up. "She's too evil for them! Didn't you hear all those things she exposed about us? She told the world that I liked pho! _Pho_!"

In the corner, the members of Team Gai were experiencing their own mental breakdown.

"I'll never wear anything but green again! If I do, my youth will leave! If I do, I'll commit seppuku!" Lee swore to himself, rocking back and forth on the stool.

Tenten looked relatively stable compared to the rest of panicking Konoha nin if her reaching up to adjust the angle of her bun every five seconds was ignored.

Gai-sensei was the only one who had arrived at Suna mentally unscathed—though that was only due to Hinata being too wary of the exuberant man to get close enough to dig up any dirt about him. The lack of image-damaging material on him simply meant that his image was already so damaged that nothing worldly could bring him down any further.

Gai ate his pho in shame.

Kakashi scooted closer, comfortingly patting his friend's—though he hated to call the lively man that—back. He missed, though, and ended up patting his bowl-cut while he continued to flip through an upside down Icha Icha book.

"What are you going _on_ about, Naruto? Even if no one knew that you really preferred pho over ramen, you _eating_ here right now is exposing it anyways! Hinata-sama was just speeding up the reveal!" Neji defended, still trying to make up for that time that he had come a little too close for comfort to murdering his baby cousin.

"What are _you_ talking about?" Naruto asked a little too quickly. "I'm not eating pho! I'm just here with you guys and happen to have a bowl in front of me!"

To prove his point, Naruto picked up the said-bowl—the very same one that he had _definitely_ been eating out of—and tossed it over his shoulder, not caring that it was still half-full.

The remnants of the scalding hot soup poured over Kisame and Hinata, triggered a whole other chain of catastrophes. The heat from the boiling liquid jolted the unconscious heiress away, causing her to be startled enough to instinctively gentle fist the _fuck_ out of Kisame. In return, the sharkman—still absolutely shitfaced—pulled out Samehada and swung it around wildly, eventually making contact with the blond jinchuuriki that had triggered everything in the first place.

The once-homely pho shop quickly fell into chaos as the rest of its inhabitants were dragged into the scuffle. Kurama himself, after being woken by the shock of Samehada suddenly drawing chakra from him, forced Naruto to sprout one of the chakra tails. The Akatsuki's timeline had been completely reset, resulting in Naruto's relationship devolving back into the rocky one he had once had with the snarky tailed beast.

The tail lashed out, heading straight for the still-disoriented Hyuuga. In horror, the Konoha shinobi watched helplessly as it dove towards the unsuspecting heiress, all of them being too far away to help her get out of the path of destruction.

Sasori clicked his tongue, raising his hand to connect chakra strings to the girl who he had decided would be a participant in his learning-how-to-live-again experiment. At the same time, Deidara, who still was pitying the girl, threw a simple chakra-charged, clay figurine towards the tail, attempting to stall it enough for the puppetmaster to pull the Hyuuga out of the way.

Both their knight-like moves would prove to be unnecessary.

Hinata wasn't, by any definition, _weak_. She just happened to be surrounded by a generation composed of absolute _monsters_. Against most nin, though, the girl was pretty damn strong, and _definitely_ strong enough to avoid a measly, uncontrolled chakra tail. Without batting an eyelash, she made a long stride to meet the tail with a gentle fist.

Only to be jerked away last minute via the efforts of _the worst_ artistic duo that she'd ever have the misfortune of meeting. The force in the sudden movement triggered another chain of disaster to fall upon the Akatsuki, with the trajectory of Hinata's movements being changed to head towards the one man who any semi-intelligent person would want to avoid the most.

Nagato.

A loud _crack_ resounded through the restaurant, indicating, at the very least, a broken nose. His face injury knocked down the rest of the dominos.

Nagato might have spent a decade contemplating his atrocious deeds, but that time sure as hell hadn't done anything to change the rapid reaction times that were beaten into his war-hardened body. Out of muscle memory alone, Nagato activated one of his six paths, effectively blowing the entire pho place to smithereens.

The Konoha nin and Akatsuki members stood in silence as the walls around them collapsed to reveal one, lone man standing at where the entrance had once been.

Gaara.

"Get out."

"G-Gaara!" Naruto sheepishly greeted, having successfully halted his tailed-beast-driven rampage. He spared a laugh that was far too loud to be genuine as a peace offering. "How about we all just move our get-together to the ramen place down the street?"

"Get out."

"G-Gaara?"

Sand wrapped around the lower halves of the guilty party.

"Get. Out."

"B-But we saved you from your whole kidnapping situation!" Naruto rebutted.

"I found my _own_ way out of the base and walked to Suna _alone_. In the past five minutes, you've done more damage to my village than even my _kidnappers_ had. Not to mention, you're _sitting next to_ those exact same kidnappers."

"We've already explained, it was Sei—" Nagato's poor excuse was cut short by an elbow to the rib, courtesy of Konan.

Naruto was in tears.

Gaara sighed. "You can come back _without_ these idiots accompanying you."

The sad look was wiped off of his face as his attitude did a 180°. "Hell yeah! Let's go, guys!"

"When did he become our leader, un?"

Sasori silenced the too-talkative blond with a bored stare. "Just go with it. It's better not to question idiots.

And with that, the begrudging heroes, and the disgruntled former-heroes, began trekking towards Konoha.

"Whatever happens, I'm not the one explaining this to Tsunade-sama."

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 **This chapter is a bit on the short side, but hey, I updated before the week was up! Lol the Akatsuki just can't catch a break! And Hinata is a strong, independent woman who don't need no man to save her! :D  
**

 **Did y'all enjoy the chapter?** **Be sure to leave a review y'all! They let me know if you're still reading and enjoying the story.**

 **Have a good day! :)**


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